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Nike has done it again. The company’s introduction of the Air Jordan 11 Retro Concords on the Friday before Christmas generated long lines of people waiting, sometimes all night, to be amongst the first to shell out $180 for these shoes at retailers around the country. And $180 is only the list price. Some re-sellers have been listing them on eBay for $349 or even $1,000. How does Nike do it? The complete answer is effective marketing. I know. That is way too general. To be more specific, they do it with more effective branding and using the news media to promote their products.

Nike’s big branding weapons

The two biggest weapons in Nike’s branding arsenal are (1) the Nike Swoosh logo and (2) the emphasis on hero athletes – in this case basketball legend Michael Jordan. Since the original Air Jordan 1’s were banned by the NBA in 1985 for violation of their rules on shoe color, the NBA fined Michael Jordan $5,000 per game for wearing them. Nike gladly paid the fines since they created more new stories and “buzz” with every fine. Nike received a major assist from Jordan’s performance on the court. He was named to the All Star team, voted Rookie of the Year, and helped to bring the Chicago Bulls to the playoffs after a four-year absence. This sequence of events reveals Nike’s other secret weapon – using the news media to promote their brand and products often for free.

Clever use of promotion leverage

Of course, Nike’s use of the news media predates the Air Jordan shoes and associated fines. Converse became the official shoe sponsor of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. They paid a $4 million dollars for the privilege, and upwards of $6 million more on additional promotional costs. Nike outsmarted Converse by spending much less to create a commercial showing songwriter Randy Newman driving around Los Angeles singing his hit song “I Love LA” while well-known Olympic athletes Mary Decker Slaney and Carl Lewis ran and jumped wearing Nike gear. The video commercial aired before and during the Olympics. However, the paid spots were dwarfed by the free news coverage of the video in Los Angeles and around the world. News stations played the video over and over, and the song became the unofficial theme song of the Olympics with Nike benefitting with every free brand impression. The result? By spending much less to create a commercial that became its own news story, Nike gave most people the impression it was the official shoe sponsor of the Olympics.

Since the 1984 Olympics, Nike has used just about every opportunity to leverage their promotional investments with news coverage. In 2010, when the news media was focusing their attention on the Tiger Woods cheating scandal, Nike made a commercial with Tiger Woods that became its own news story and capitalized on the widespread interest in the scandal.

Swoosh logo is everywhere generating more free impressions

The genius of Nike's marketing is not limited to leveraging big news stories. It appears every day in the sports sections of newspapers, blogs, and TV coverage of sporting events as the Nike swoosh is prominently displayed on uniforms and sports gear. The location of the swoosh for maximum exposure enables the brand to be continuously etched into the brains of anyone that witnesses the events or sees the replays and news coverage. The more that people see the logo associated with successful athletes, such as Michael Jordan, the more comfortable they are buying the products that use the same brand identifiers.

From validation to desirability and beyond

In addition to being a graphic representation of the brand that gets quickly implanted in buyer brains, the swoosh becomes a brand validator that gives status and recognition to the buyer. It’s a short-cut to purchase that overcomes even price barriers of $180, $349 or even $1,000 for one pair of athletic shoes. For the target audience, the Nike/Jordan brand gives the product desirability. The lines and news stories about the lines take the desirability to an even higher level where people not only want the product, they have to have it for status, bragging rights, or their own self identity.

Great branding and clever use of the news media for promotional leverage is how Nike just does it, how: they are likely to continue to just do it, and why: Air Jordan 11 Retro Concords are already a big hit.